His wife standing next to him, Clyde Cressler kissed another woman on the dance floor.

Her name was Elaine Seckar, his ballroom dancing instructor at Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Lemoyne. It was there, under the lights of the chandeliers, dancing over the worn grain of the ballroom floor, that she showed him a temporary cure for the Parkinson's disease running through his legs like pins and needles.

"It was on the cheek, of course," Clyde says.

It was the simplest way the 68-year-old business owner from Mechanicsburg could express his feelings. The pain he had felt for so long had disappeared.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

His wife, Carol, understood. Her husband had seemed to overcome, if only for the length of a Beatles song, the disease that had destroyed his sense of normal.

No, it wasn't a new medication that saved him.

It was the tango.

1-2-3, 1-2-3.

First tremors

Clyde hadn't felt normal since before a doctor's appointment 14 years ago.

At home after open heart surgery, his arm started to shake. He found out they were tremors. The implication of those shakes didn't seem real until the doctor came back to the tiny examining room with the terrible news.

"You have Parkinson's disease," the doctor said.

Clyde was devastated.

For 15 minutes, he thought about what he could have done to change his path to that doctor's office.

Why now? Where to go from there?

Parkinson's is a neurological disease that affects nerve cells in the part of the brain that controls muscle movement. The cells that create the chemical dopamine, which helps control movement and emotional responses, die.

The lack of dopamine often causes trembling in the hands, arms, legs, jaw and face. In extreme cases, victims of Parkinson's can't smile anymore, their emotions hidden by the disease.

Clyde still smiles, but often experiences stiffness in his arms, legs and trunk, slowness of movement, poor balance and coordination.

On many mornings, he can barely walk.

He's not alone.

At least 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson's in the U. S., according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. More than 50,000 new cases are reported every year.

It's a disease that has no cure.

But what hurt Clyde most was the sense that he'd slowly and painfully lose his identity.

"You don't know what Clyde you're going to get every morning," he says, tying his shiny, black dancing shoes in the studio, sitting in the ballroom on a day that's been easier than most. "I feel so good right now."

This day is a blessing compared with others.

"In a half-hour, I might be lying on the floor," Clyde says.

CHRISTINE BAKER, The Patriot-News Seckar dances with Carol to show Clyde how to lead properly.

A menace of the mat

Look at his ears, and you'll see a token of battle.

He had been a champion wrestler in 1959 at Newport High School, where he is in the hall of fame. Then, he was the young stud wrestler at Shippensburg University, donning the broad shoulders, impressive record and cauliflower ear.

His then-girlfriend Carol, whom he'd marry, watched all of his matches.

She enjoyed watching him compete, but it wasn't his athleticism or physicality that attracted her.

Clyde made her laugh.

He was kind, and even if he had made a name for himself as a menace of the mat, he had a softer side.

No one could tell her different.

Many nights, Clyde took Carol's hand and dragged her to dance somewhere. Anywhere. He needed to keep moving, burning energy. She liked his confidence and was more than willing to blaze trails through clubs and dance halls from Shippensburg to Pittsburgh.

"We had a lot of fun," Carol says.

In the wrestling days, many of Clyde's matches ended with his arm raised, his opponent crawling back to his feet after the pin.

But in the last five years, Clyde has crawled to the bathroom more times than he'd like to count. It's usually around the same time - about 8 a.m. - that most of the medication that battled the disease through the night has run its course.

To fix his stiff legs, Clyde takes more pills - five medications, three times a day - and waits 30 minutes for them to start working.

The medication has not been the answer, though. For 40 years, Clyde has been close to the business of medicine. Not as a patient, but the pharmacist.

He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Pharmacy in 1969.

In 1999, he founded Care Capital Management, a pharmaceutical company, and through the years has opened 15 Medicine Shoppe pharmacies across the midstate.

If Clyde has learned one thing about his own medications, it's that they wear off.

The disease will not.

Even so, he hasn't slowed.

He has yet to retire.

"I've worked harder now than I ever have," Clyde says and walks to the dance floor to begin his lesson.

CHRISTINE BAKER, The Patriot-News Elaine Seckar keeps an eye on the Cresslers as they dance. On the doctors' advice, Clyde Cressler tried different forms of exercise to keep active, but conventional exercise left him in pain and unsatisfied. Dance therapy has kept him motivated and decreased his symptoms. The tango is especially helpful because special attention is taken with foot movements that are shown to help decrease shuffling, which is characteristic of Parkinson's patients.

Failing

Elaine Seckar still feels nervous before giving a dance lesson. And that's after three years of teaching at the Arthur Murray Studio.

She started there as a student, hoping to find a way to stay in shape.

She is often the focal point to young, wide-eyed couples wanting to learn to dance so they won't look awkward at their wedding reception. Or to little girls dreaming of dancing professionally one day. Others come to the studio for fun or to explore a new hobby.

Clyde came to the studio looking for help. So many doctors gave the same advice: Stay physical, exercise, keep moving.

Conventional exercise left him in pain. It was unsatisfying, and he found it hard to stay motivated.

Then a peer at a Parkinson's support group suggested ballroom dancing.

They said dance therapy has been used to relieve anxiety, that research has shown the tango to help patients overcome some symptoms.

"I knew we had to get down here," Clyde says.

"Anything to help." The Cresslers have been going to lessons two or three times a week for nine months.

And they weren't very good to start, rusty from living in the nostalgia of their youth.

"The only way to learn how to do something is by messing up," Elaine says.

"And there's a lot of frustration." Today, they're going through the steps of the tango. Elaine watches closely.

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